Title: Little Eve Edgarton

Produced by Robert Shimmin and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

LITTLE EVE EDGARTON

BY

ELEANOR HALLOWELL ABBOTT

Author of “Molly Make Believe,” “The
White Linen Nurse,” etc.

With Illustrations by

R.M. CROSBY

NewYorktheCenturyCo.
1914

Published, September, 1914

[Illustration: “Music! Flowers!
Palms! Catering! Everything!”]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“Music! Flowers! Palms! Catering!
Everything!”

“I am riding,” she murmured almost inaudibly

“I would therefore respectfully suggest as a
special topic of conversation the consummate cheek
of—­yours truly, Paul Reymouth Edgarton!”

“Your paper-dollbook?”
stammered Barton

“Don’t delay me!” she said, “I’ve
got to make four hundred muffins!”

Suddenly full comprehension broke upon him and he
fairly blurted out his astonishing information

“You’re nice,” he said. “I
like you!”

“Any time that you people want me,” suggested
Edgarton’s icy voice, “I am standing here—­in
about the middle of the floor!”

LITTLE EVE EDGARTON

CHAPTER I

“But you live like such a fool—­of
course you’re bored!” drawled the Older
Man, rummaging listlessly through his pockets for the
ever-elusive match.

“Well, I like your nerve!” protested the
Younger Man with unmistakable asperity.

“Do you—­really?” mocked the
Older Man, still smiling very faintly.

For a few minutes then both men resumed their cigars,
staring blinkishly out all the while from their dark
green piazza corner into the dazzling white tennis
courts that gleamed like so many slippery pine planks
in the afternoon glare and heat. The month was
August, the day typically handsome, typically vivid,
typically caloric.

It was the Younger Man who recovered his conversational
interest first. “So you think I’m
a fool?” he resumed at last quite abruptly.

“Oh, no—­no! Not for a minute!”
denied the Older Man. “Why, my dear sir,
I never even implied that you were a fool! All
I said was that you—­lived like a fool!”